Original reference: de Santis L (1960) Un nuevo Tisanóptero gigante del Brasil. Actas y trabajos del Primer Congreso Sudamericano de Zoología 3: 57–60.
Male macropterous; body color mainly dark brown, abdomen almost black, mid and hind tarsi paler; antennomere I dark brown, II brown basally and lighter apically, remaining antennomeres mostly yellowish with darker bases and apexes; wings almost hyaline, with a dark median line. Antennae 8-segmented, antennomere III with 1 and IV with 2 sense cones; antennomeres III–V extremely long and club-shaped. Head longer than wide, transversely striate; with one pair of long postocular setae and two pairs of stout lateral setae; lateral margins straight. Pronotum with 2 pairs of well-developed setae (anteroangular and epimeral), remaining setae short; prosternal basantra absent. Mesonotum with irregular polygonal sculpture. Metanotum irregularly reticulated, with one pair of long and thick setae medially, and several thin setae on anterior angles. Metathoracic sternopleural sutures absent. Abdominal tergites II–VII with 1 pair of wing-retaining setae. Pore plates absent. Tube cylinder-shaped, a little over 8x as long as basal width, with numerous lateral setae. Fore legs enlarged; fore femora with a row of three setae apically; fore tarsi with a large tooth. Fore wings with about 53–58 duplicated cilia.
Female unknown.
Intraspecific variation
Unknown.
Genus and similar species information
Actinothrips is a genus with 13 species, all from the Neotropics. It belongs to a group of Idolothripinae genera with an elongate head, projected in front of eyes and with multiple long setae, basantra weakly developed or absent, metathoracic sternopleural sutures absent, and a very elongate tube, with multiple lateral setae. Males of several Actinothrips species are very morphologically diverse, with minor and major forms; while the females of different taxa tend to be very similar to each other, making the distinction between species difficult. Males of Actinothrips gargantua are distinguished from males of A. bondari and A. trichaetus for having a long tarsal tooth; and from A. femoralis and A. pedalis for bearing less sense cones on antennomeres III and IV, as well as having only two pairs of longer pronotal setae.A key to males of some Actinothrips species is available in Mound (1991).
